


Repayment

by AngeNoir



Series: Filled One-Shot Prompts [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, One Shot, One-Sided Relationship, Post Reichenbach, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-11
Updated: 2012-07-11
Packaged: 2017-11-09 15:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/456861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeNoir/pseuds/AngeNoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly has almost gotten used to pining for Sherlock, and when Sherlock suddenly turns around and expresses interest in the most insulting way possible, well...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Repayment

**Author's Note:**

> Fills of a prompt given to me on tumblr. Prompts are at the end of each story so as not to give away the whole plot. An abbreviated/teaser plot is what is found in the summary.

Molly stepped into the morgue, turning on the low-level lights and moving to the body bag lying on the closest table. “No one’s here now,” she murmured.

Mere seconds after she spoke, the bag shifted, and the zipper rolled down, revealing Sherlock Holmes’ lanky form, blood splattered over his head. He was far too aloof to wince, but Molly had made a study of Sherlock, of his quirks and his responses. More than anyone - John, Detective Inspector Lestrade, even his brother (Molly didn’t know his name, only his face) - Molly knew Sherlock. It was she, after all, who allowed him access to the morgue when he had wanted it all those years ago, and it was she who knew how he took his coffee, what types of crisps he liked, what he looked like when he visited his mind palace, what his response would be, always, inevitably, when she asked him out for coffee, or out for lunch, or for any social action beyond what was absolutely necessary to gain him entrance into the morgue.

Molly was not an idiot. Though her father had insinuated, often enough, that she was wasting her life in a career that would never get her a husband, and her mother told her on a weekly basis that men didn’t like smart women, that didn’t stop Molly from pursuing a double degree in biology and chemistry. In the beginning, she had wanted to become a doctor, a surgeon, but she had never lost her fascination with the dead and putting together the puzzle of how people died from their naked bodies. Each person that came under her knife was a new facet of the human race, their mortality shining in a different way.

It was embarrassing, how Sherlock had wormed his way into her life sometimes. She tried dating other people (the disastrous Jim from IT not withstanding, she was pretty and though she didn’t fuss with makeup most of the time she was confident in her looks) but always, always, she turned back to Sherlock. Sherlock was - was the sun, burning brilliantly, flares and heat and light radiating and touching everyone around him. He burned, too - others reacted negatively, angrily, because that’s what humans did when they were hurt: they lashed out.

Only John hadn’t.

When Molly first saw John… well. It explained, perhaps, why Sherlock never looked at her, if he wasn’t interested in her gender at all. But time after time, watching how Sherlock treated John, treated John’s dates (and wasn’t it interesting that John didn’t seem to return Sherlock’s attention and obsession?), Molly began to hope again. Sherlock was very much a young child in social skills, though his mental acumen was leagues and leagues older than everyone else. Sherlock had attached to John like a child would attach to a favorite toy, dragging about their stuffed animal and regaling it with stories of their feats. John put up with it, though, didn’t push back the way most others did. John…

“I’m - not quite comfortable with this, Sherlock,” she murmured as he climbed off the slab and swayed. Only she and his brother knew of his faked death, and John had looked… so heartbroken. So terribly, terribly old and worn down.

Sherlock turned to her, an eyebrow raised, but she could see the faint tremor there, the worry that she would break and reveal his plan and put everything he’d worked for in jeopardy. And - she wasn’t. She’d hold firm.

He nodded at her and moved to walk away, only to fall. She ran to his side immediately, nerves making her babble like always. “Sherlock, of course you’re hurt, we’ve got to set that arm and you’re lucky if you don’t have a concussion - come on, my flat’s not far from here.”

And so Sherlock came to live in her flat.

Oh, she knew it was only for a week or two, enough for him to heal so that he could go dashing off again. But the proximity, his inability to stay still, how he regularly turned her kitchen table into a hazardous wasteland - he needed something to stimulate his mind. She brought back what little tidbits she could, from her position at the morgue - John’s limp returning, Mrs. Hudson’s failing health, Detective Inspector Lestrade’s demotion and Anderson’s promotion - but he always nodded distractedly. She worried he was leaving the flat… not that she could stop him, and he knew better than anyone how to blend and not be seen.

Still, she worried. Until, of course, the time she came back to find him stark naked in her living room.

“SHERLOCK!”

He glanced up from the laptop he had balanced on the arm of the chair. “Hello, Molly.”

“Put some clothes on, Sherlock! This is - ” (stop looking, stop looking, look away) ” - not appropriate behavior!”

“You’ve been having a difficult time sleeping.”

She had grabbed a quilt from the back of the sofa and held it out in front of her, but at that she paused and carefully (don’t look don’t look don’t look) met his eyes only. “What?”

“The lines of stress and fatigue, your eating habits, the rumpled state of your clothing indicating that you get dressed very early because you’re waking up in the middle of the night - you’re not sleeping right, and it’s because I’ve not yet left, because of what I’ve coerced you into doing.”

“Well - Sherlock, please just put some clothes on, this is wrong,” she pleaded, because of course he’d notice even though she never left her room before seven, left punctually at seven thirty-five every morning, came back exactly at six thirty in the evening. They didn’t see one another beyond breakfast and dinner, and evenings too, if she wandered into the kitchen where he was once more doing some arcane experiment on her cabbage.

“Do you want to have intercourse with me?”

Molly lifted her eyes in shock to see his extremely serious gaze. “W-what?”

He stood up, towering over her, and it became much harder to only look at his face and not - other places. “You find my body pleasurable, and have repeatedly expressed desire for it by dilated irises, a flush to the cheeks, and an inability to look at me if I unbutton more than two buttons of my shirt or wear those black slacks you bought me. Do you wish to have intercourse with me? It’s a simple enough question.”

Molly handed him the quilt, which he took in his hands. Then, she reached over and slapped him.

She had the immense satisfaction of shock in his eyes when he looked back at her.

“How - how dare you. I - Sherlock Holmes, go. Put. Some. Clothes. On.”

Confusion appeared like lightning in his eyes before the same cold, aloof mask came over his features. “Of course,” he murmured, wrapping the quilt around his body and leaving the room.

Only when she heard the bathroom door did she collapse on the couch, trembling with fury and tears. This, more than anything, showed that her dreams with Sherlock were nothing more than dreams, nothing more than girlish fantasies. Sherlock did not see sex as she saw sex. It was a function of the body to engage with another human being for some - payment. She hadn’t done this for payment. She had done this because Sherlock was her friend, and someone she respected - someone she had respected, anyway.

She didn’t move when the bathroom door opened and a weight settled on the sofa next to her, though not too close to be overbearing. “You are angry.”

“I’m FURIOUS, Sherlock!” she said, and she was surprised with how her voice came out in a snarl. “I didn’t do this so you could - could w-whore yourself to me! You are - were - my friend! You don’t -“

Sherlock placed his cold hand around hers, curling it gently and looking down at her fingers. “I am not - I apologize, for making you uncomfortable - “

Yanking her hand away, she raised her hand almost as if to slap him again, and he flinched but did not move. Biting her lip, knowing that tears were starting to leak from her eyes, she lowered her hand and folded her arms, rubbing her elbows as if it was cold - because she felt so, so cold. “Sherlock, sex is more than - more than intercourse. For me. It is - it means a lot more. So no, I do not want to have intercourse with you, and I will never want to have intercourse with you.”

There was a beat of silence, and then Sherlock whispered, “I apologize, Molly.”

And damn him, she couldn’t stay mad at him. She couldn’t rail at him, or slap him, or kick him out like she wanted. So she stood up and tried to gather her wounded dignity. “I’m going to eat dinner, Sherlock.”

Leaving the room, she made her way past the disaster area of her kitchen table and pulled out a plate of leftovers from the night before. She could hear Sherlock hovering in the doorway, and she just wanted to stop crying.

“I’m leaving tomorrow. Mycroft has gotten together the requisite documents and my passport.”

“That’s lovely, Sherlock,” she said, more viciously than perhaps he deserved.

There was a heartbeat of hesitation, and then Sherlock said in a softer voice, “I do wish to repay you, Molly. For - everything.”

And Molly had to brace herself against the counter, listening to the soft roar of the microwave and the rain pattering against the kitchen window, because damn him, DAMN him, she knew he hadn’t wanted to upset or offend her. “Just -” she said, voice breaking a little, “- just let me know that you’re alright? W-write regularly, or - or text?”

A small inhalation behind her, and then - “Of course, Molly. I shall - put the table to rights, then? Before I leave?”

Molly recognized the effort for what it was, an apology, and nodded without turning around as the microwave beeped its completion. “Please,” she whispered.

Because as strong as John was, as much as Sherlock didn’t see the need to interact socially with others, she needed that steady confirmation. She needed to know he was alright.

She needed to know her friend was still alive.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Sherlock BBC: ANGST Molly x Sherlock story where he tries to offer her sex as a thank you for helping him survive the fall. Molly is heart broken because she doesn't just want sex and Sherlock realizes his mistake and tries to make up but the damage is already done.


End file.
